


Forces of

by duckiesandlemons



Category: Kamen Rider Gaim
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Birthday gift!!, Gen, Gift Fic, It's like a build up, Pre-Slash, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 16:19:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1864323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckiesandlemons/pseuds/duckiesandlemons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s in a sad affair, and not from the love of use.  Ryouma thinks it quite like himself, in some ways.</p><p>Seen, looked at, observed, but not regarded.</p><p> (Birthday fic for butyoumight)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forces of

**Author's Note:**

  * For [butyoumight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/butyoumight/gifts).



> The book Ryouma is attempting to read, and which the bold titles are from, is Lucretius' "On the Force of Nature." The titles are specifically taken from Book One, and the book is essentially a giant poem about the ideals of Epicureanism. Yet it also is a good read on the scientific observations Lucretius himself made even if now they're practically defunct.

**_The Beginning_ **

Ryouma discovers Helheim alongside Takatora in high school.  A tiny glimpse of a crack, something moving beyond the thin tear in dimensions, and the delicate bloom of a flower left behind.  It withers upon being picked up, but it’s their first encounter.  They run into it continuously after that, and then there’s more and more until he finds himself years later in a lab designing something that would utilize the fruit.

In this time period Ryouma finds it in him to pick up a book he skimmed once.

When young and naïve and not worn to the bone by everything that Helheim threw at him.  He finds it in him to flip through the first few pages, takes in the translated text and takes in the ramblings of man most likely considered mad in his time.

Or a philosopher.

(Ryouma’s not a philosopher but all the same)

Ryouma’s read this book before, he’s read the opening lines, knows the details, the inner workings.  It is a poem, but it is also an observation.  There is nothing absolutely concrete, and everything in it flawed, but he reads it.  He reads the opening, skims the lines, and he wonders.

He wonders why they are so quick to ask for apologies from deities that do not exist.

Why they are quick to apologize for not believing in them.

What forgiveness is there to seek?

His eyes flick up from the text to the lab door opening and Takatora coming in.  He will continue reading later, for now he has to do driver testing.

**_Substance is Eternal_ **

The law of the conservation of matter is something simple.  One of the first things taught and kept to heart, or at least to Ryouma.  He’s read the law enough in science books and it’s easy enough that it sticks to one’s brain with sharp teeth.  More annoying than irritating—but it is helpful.  The fact that a man from way back when, during the height of Rome, can pick it out is comment enough on how simple it is.

“Nothing from nothing ever yet was born,” he reads.  Slowly, word by word, until they’re just as burned into his memory as the law they represented.

It makes him wonder how Helheim came about, then, if that were the case.  Where did it appear, and how did it come into being?  A forest, a world, such as Helheim does not just appear like that seemingly out of the blue.  If from death, nothing can be created, and from birth, nothing can be created, then from Helheim exactly how did it come about? 

Ryouma has theories, written down somewhere in a notebook buried underneath the rest of the mess in his labs.  He has ideas and hypotheses scribbled on to receipts and napkins and any other paper object he can grab a hold of on what exactly Helheim might be.  How it got there, why it’s there, the possible inhabitants—they’re all there, scattered around his lab.  Coffee stains, food stains, stains from the years he’s worked with Helheim.  He has too many years invested into this forest, and where a regular scientist, a scientist _not_ Ryouma, would have lab coats with spilled cultures on them, lab coats with harmless chemicals, Ryouma has—

Blood, it is safe to call it blood.

He can’t quite concentrate on the book anymore, snaps it shut and removes his glasses.  On his desk sits the schematics for the updated driver, already near completion, but he ignores it in favor of leaning back in his chair.  He has made Helheim his life—ten years of researching, studying, of picking and prying it apart.  Helheim does not follow anything Ryouma’s known.  He has seen with his eyes how its fruit destroys, he has seen many a lab rat writhe in agony as they ingested it—transformed.  He has seen, once, how a human screamed and fell to the ground.  How they spent hours with skin twisting and bones snapping as they changed.

He has seen, much later, how that stopped, how that evened out—

No pain, no pain, none at all—

Just a flash of light and they are done.

Helheim is everything Ryouma needs to figure out and his obsession is proving to be dangerous. 

“Professor Ryouma,” Minato walks up to his desk with files in her hand, “the latest reports from the team in Helheim.”

“Thank you, Minato,” he says and straightens up.  Minato is new, but she has been trustworthy and helpful.  She’s done everything he’s asked, done everything he’s needed.

“Is there anything else?”

“How is that side investigation going?”

“Overseer Kureshima is not yet aware of our study of the…potential inhabitants of Helheim or the Forbidden Fruit.”

Good, Ryouma thinks.  Good, perhaps he can approach Takatora about this soon.

Perhaps he can try to fix things.

**_The Void_ **

Ryouma should have known that Takatora wouldn’t agree.

He should have known Takatora would have pushed to try and save as many as they can.

Only one in seven, Ryouma pushes.  Only one in seven and they’ll need a leader, they will need you—

Takatora denies it.  Keeps on denying it, plays humble and yet plays the leader for all the wrong reasons.  Ryouma has not spent his career studying this forest only for his findings to not be put to use.  He didn’t spend his time making hat belt for Takatora just to have it spat back in his face—

Ryouma cannot agree.  He cannot oblige to Takatora’s wants, he cannot.  Not when there’s a better solution presented that would help them all, not when the answer lies in the Forbidden Fruit that Helheim guarded.  That Ryouma—

Coveted?  Desired?

No, no, not him.  He’s not fit at all for the power it will bring about.  He had plans—plans that were months, years, in the making—to support whoever obtained it.  He had hoped that Takatora would have accepted everything Ryouma did, because the belt, the only reason he made the belt had been for Takatora to _lead_ because humanity _needed_ a Takatora.

There is no room for a Sengoku, when there is always a room for a Kureshima.

Ryouma will have to do things in his own way.

**_Nothing Exists per se Except Atoms and the Void_ **

It’s shortly after Ryouma’s finished the Genesis Drivers, shortly after the death of Hase (a pity but it cannot be helped), shortly after his first talk with Kumon Kaito and Kazuraba Kouta, that he picks up the book again.  He keeps on putting it off when easily he could finish it here and now.  Yet Ryouma finds himself pausing on where he left off, staring at the words but not reading them, not fully taking them in.  His offers for help—turned down, always turned down.

Righteous morals, mindless pursuit of strength—

Ryouma puts the book down.  Since when he has been so accepting of his own vices?  Since when has he so easily pushed back the interest of others for his own?

Helheim is truly dangerous, Rouma muses, for him to have lost himself that much.

Ah, no.

He’s always had the capacity for this.  This sort of disregard—he’s always had it.

Especially when it came to a dying society.

(Though the attempts of fighting back, the fierceness he saw in Kazuraba Kouta’s eyes, of the one he’s always been watching and now has seen face to face, leaves something unknown resting uneasy in Ryouma)

**_Character of the Atom_ **

Observations of Kazuraba Kouta have proved more entertaining than Ryouma has ever thought them to be.  While it is simple work to watch, observe, take notes, and modify that which he has seen it is still something else to witness Kouta use the energy lock seeds with the Sengoku Driver.  That Kouta is able to pull out the potential of the belt with something that Ryouma had not expected—it’s all fascinating.

It also raises Ryouma’s hopes up and he pushes them down before they get too high.

It also does not help that Ryouma keeps making unconscious parallels to Takatora.  Kouta holds the same youthful optimism that Takatora once held.  Kouta holds the same hope, the same want to save people, that Takatora holds.  Ryouma sees it all and it is disorienting.  He needs to stop, because Kouta is not Takatora, will never _be_ Takatora, and Ryouma needs to shift his focus to something else.

He believes Kouta can help—

He believes Kouta will say yes—

Kouta’s raid on Yggdrasill is unexpected, the arms he uses not of Ryouma’s own design.  Ryouma is all parts giddy and all parts furious, broken laughs escaping his mouth as he leans back.

Perhaps Kouta is not at all like Takatora as Ryouma though.  This is a new development, something interesting, something worth following, and Ryouma pushes for a meeting with Kouta as soon as he can.  Kouta, Ryouma believes (knows), will help.  Kouta will follow through on what Takatora denied, because Kouta wears his heart on his sleeve and inspires those around him.

It seems Ryouma may have another chance, and he waits patiently for the day his meeting with Kouta is to be held.

In the mean time he tries to read his book, but his excitement is too much.  He can only get a few sentences in.

“And those which are the primal germs of things,” the book reads, “No power can quench; for in the end they conquer.”

**_Confutation of Other Philosophers_ **

Kouta walks in to his lab looking uneasy.

Ryouma cannot blame him.  His last visits to Yggdrasill had not been on the best of terms, and Ryouma had urged him here out of the blue.  “Kazuraba Kouta,” he starts, and from there he welcomes him.  He talks to him, he answers questions to the best of his ability.  He doesn’t lie, he only says half of the truth, tells fully when he feels it necessary.

Kazuraba gets frustrated, Kazuraba gets antsy, Kazuraba—

“What do you really want!?” Kazuraba gets scared.

_Fear holds dominion over mortality_

Ryouma remembers these words idly, and thinks that there’s not much for Kouta to be afraid of.  Ryouma’s tested his power, once, came out on top because he had not considered his own strength.  Yet this is nothing like this, the only death Kazuraba had to fear—

Well, no death, if everything went as how Ryouma wanted it to.

“Simple,” Ryouma says and stands up to approach Kazuraba, “I’m here to make you an offer.  One that will help you get back Yuuya, Hase, anyone killed by Helheim.”  Kouta looks stricken, confused.

“What—“

“Hear me out, Kazuraba Kouta.”

Of course, Kouta says no.

The similarities to Takatora are too strong and Ryouma finds himself back at square one.  Not defeated, he cannot give up that easily, but he’ll have to think of something else.

(Minato shows interest in Kaito, Kaito gets an upgrade, Ryouma final rids himself of Takatora like he should have from the start, Sid turns on them, he asks for Kazuraba’s help again, the Overlord invasion—it’s a long chain of misfortunes Ryouma does not wish to experience again)

**_The Infinity of the Universe_ **

Ryouma finds his mind wandering back to Takatora every now and then.  He has tried to read his book again but he makes no progress.  He re-reads the same line fifteen times before he deems it all useless.  The book is dropped to the floor, pages bent, spine cracked from how many times Ryouma has opened it and simply not done anything.  It’s in a sad affair, and not from the love of use.  Ryouma thinks it quite like himself, in some ways.

Seen, looked at, observed, but not regarded.

Perhaps there’s a better analogy than that, but it is how he feels.  They’re still on lock down, they’re still searching for that Overlord.  Kaito has been doing well enough to fend it off, along with Minato’s help, and Ryouma feels like he can only do so much but—

He’s failed one time too many and he finds that his resolve is not as firm as it used to be.  He will do anything, yes, but he is also tired.  Weary.

When the door opens again he looks to see Kazuraba standing there with a golden lock seed in one hand and his driver in the other.

“Ohh,” Ryouma drawls, “I wouldn’t expect to see you here again, Kouta.”

“…I need your help,” Kouta speaks up.  “I…I thought about it and…I decided.”

“Decided?” Ryouma knows what Kouta’s decided on, and it seems a bit too good to be true.  The question is mostly for teasing, but Ryouma needs to know.  He needs to hear it from Kouta’s own lips.

“To…to become a god, or whatever it is you said,” Kouta makes a face, as if the words pained him to say.  Ryouma sees the resolve, though, he sees it under the tough façade that Kouta tries to keep up.  Kouta is trying to stay strong but Ryouma sees through each layer, peels them back with his eyes.  Kouta, withered and frayed, ready to break, and Ryouma will be his support.

“I’m glad you’ve agreed, but I can’t accept it so easily where’s proof that you’ll go through with this?”

“I…It’s here,” Kouta unbuttons his shirt, peeling it back to show angry red skin still healing into a twisted burn scar similar to the one on Takatora’s shoulder.  It crept down Kouta’s abdomen, disappeared behind the waistline of his jeans.  Ryouma’s eyes widen—barely.

“…you tried it already.”

“I didn’t want to, I thought I could do it, but when I tried putting it on after Kachidoki—“

“This isn’t proof of your resolve, Kouta, this is proof of idiocy.  Desperateness.”

Kouta sounds strained, weak, his voice taking a tremulous note, “Then help me not be desperate, help me not be an idiot.  I don’t want anyone else to die—“

They are words enough for Ryouma.

(Perhaps he’s not as cruel as he thought himself capable of)


End file.
